1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to blow guns used for sport and games, specifically the safety and accuracy features of such blow guns and projectiles associated with said blow guns.
2. Prior Art
Blow guns have been known for hundreds of years and used both as weapons and for games and entertainment. Some blowguns even fire foam darts and marshmallows and implement a variety of safety features such as an aperture which prevents a projectile from being loaded into the end of the gun which the user applies their mouth to blow, instead requiring a projectile be loaded in from the end of the gun which the projectile passes out of when fired. This and other safety features result in a cumbersome loading process, and do not always keep the projectile within the blow gun when the blow gun is tipped or jolted.
A variety of foam projectile launching devices and foam projectile designs have been popular toy items for decades. While there are a great variety of projectiles, there are no dart-type projectiles which incorporate a spiral or rifling pattern upon the dart itself or other feature designed to enhance aerodynamic stability of dart-type projectiles, beyond simply streamlining the form of such projectiles in order to decrease wind resistance. Further, dart-type projectiles are normally not comprised of a material which decreases resistance within the bore of a blowgun, nor are they normally designed to fit with a tight tolerance between the bore and the projectile. The combination of a smooth projectile and a tight tolerance between bore and projectile yields too high of a projectile velocity to allow for good in-flight projectile stability without a carefully designed projectile, and thus has never been attempted in the arena of sport blowguns.